Fullerton wants commuters to share bikes

Orange County transportation officials are betting on a network of public bikes to help solve the so-called last-mile problem: that final part of a commute from the train station or bus stop to a destination.

Orange County Transportation Authority chose Bike Nation, the company that is launching a bike-share program in Anaheim, to install 15 bike stations and 165 bicycles in Fullerton by spring 2013 through federal grant money.

The bike-share program will allow locals to rent bikes for short commutes.

Once the bike-share network is installed in Fullerton, a San Juan Capistrano resident, for example, could take a Metrolink train to the Fullerton station, undock a bike from a kiosk, and ride it to school or work.

"Certainly, providing some connection between transit and points of interest – retail centers and employment centers and schools – makes a tremendous amount of sense," said Derek Fretheim, an Irvine resident and chief operating officer of Tustin-based Bike Nation.

The pilot program in Fullerton will span a 2-square-mile area that includes Cal State Fullerton, Hope International University, Fullerton College, the Fullerton Metrolink station and the downtown district where cyclists can use a network of bike lanes.

"It also provides the opportunity for a person to park once," Fretheim said.

For a person who does drive to their job, a bike-share connection from their place of employment could help them ride to lunch at a restaurant they would normally drive to, Fretheim added.

In order to ride the public bikes, users must buy a membership for various time periods: $6 a day to $75 a year. At the unmanned kiosk, the user unlocks the bike with a membership card. Users can also ride the bikes free for 30 minutes and for a fee for time used afterward.

As the demand for public bikes has picked up regionally and nationwide, officials have expressed high hopes for this program.

The bike network has the potential to "inspire the mainstream population to choose bicycling as a significant transportation mode," transportation authority officials have said, adding the program "could help change the culture of transportation in Orange County."

In Washington, D.C., where the first bike-sharing system was launched, about 1,600 people joined SmartBike D.C. during its two years of operation. Since then, a system in Arlington County and Alexandria have joined and expanded with D.C. with more than 1,670 bikes and about 175 stations. It's now known as the Capital Bikeshare system.

The system has been very successful, according to John Lisle with the district department of transportation.

"We have a lot of new residents coming in who don't own cars," Lisle said. "So providing different transportation choices that make it easy for them to get around ... makes it possible to live in the city."

Bike Nation has launched its first of eight kiosks in downtown Anaheim, but they're not operable yet. In early 2013, the company is also expected to launch a 4,000-bike system in the city of Los Angeles, and is developing 250 stations with 2,500 bikes in Long Beach.

The company hopes to expand to Orange and Garden Grove as soon as possible and increase the number of bikes to 11,000 in up to 10 communities by the end of 2013.